


Misery Loves Company

by amutemockingjay



Series: Crash and Burn Girl [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eliza is a cinnamon roll, F/M, Gen, I just love them both so much, Insomnia, Late Night Conversations, Laurens needs so much love, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 00:25:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8599777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amutemockingjay/pseuds/amutemockingjay
Summary: John Laurens couldn't sleep for the darkness of thoughts. Luckily (or unluckily) for him, neither could Eliza. Set in the Shatter Me universe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I know a lot of you were telling me how you wanted to hear more from Laurens in this universe, and not gonna lie, I love writing him so much so this oneshot is as much an answer to your inquiries as it is a bit of self-indulgence on my part. In my headcanon, Laurens is gay but biromantic. And as much as I love their friendship, as Eliza and him being best friends is my favorite headcanon, he ended up surprising me with the rest. I just really want him to get the love he is so sorely lacking.

John Laurens couldn’t sleep. This was unusual—Alex was the one who was awake at all hours, who used to babble to him at two am about the state of the economy. Who was scribbling into that notebook of his, a constant companion. They had gone back to sharing rooms; Laurens felt lonely otherwise. Not that he could ever forget that kiss, that kiss meant for someone else, that kiss that he swore he could still feel on his lips. Everything he could possibly want but never, ever have.

He glanced over to Alex’s side of the room; the new medication they had put him on had gotten his best friend to sleep, at least for once. He pushed back the covers on his bed and swung his legs over the side, his bare feet hitting the cold floor. He knew they weren’t supposed to be up and wandering at all hours, but laying and staring at the ceiling held little appeal to him. He slipped out of the room, and into the harsh lighting of the hallway. Much to his surprise, he was not alone. Just a few doors down, Eliza sat in the hallway, her dark hair a curtain in front of her face.

He padded towards her, and settled down next to her.

“Hey,” he said softly. Speaking with Eliza always made him lower the register of his voice, as if he were startling a doe.

She looked up, brushed back her hair. Blinked those almond-shaped eyes at him. “Laurens,” she said.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asked her.

She shook her head. “Too much on my mind.”

“Need to talk about it?” He reached for her hand; she took it without hesitation. Her skin was icy cold. “You’re freezing.”

“I’m always freezing,” she said with a trace of melancholy.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He stood up, parting from her with reluctance. He ran the few steps back to his room, where he grabbed the blanket Martha had knitted him off the edge of the bed. He returned.

“Here.” He wrapped it around her shoulders. “Stay close to me. I’ll warm you up.”

She rewarded him with a small smile. “You’re so good to me, John.”

“How could I not be?” The words were out of his mouth before he could even think of censoring them. _Keep it neutral, Laurens,_ he admonished himself. She didn’t need to know how he felt. Pathetic. He was truly pathetic.

“I don’t deserve your goodness,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t deserve your goodness.”

“No, I mean, I heard you, I just can’t comprehend the meaning of your words.” He didn’t have to reach for her hand this time; she reached for him first.

“I don’t know. I just think that if you knew, if Alexander knew me, really knew me, you wouldn’t be as good to me because I haven’t earned it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I have a hard time wrapping my mind around any universe in which you’re a bad person, Eliza Schuyler.”

“That’s the rub, though.” She wiggled her bare toes. He noticed they were painted bright red. “Everyone thinks I’m a much better person than I actually am.”

“Isn’t that true of most people, though?”

She bit her lower lip. God, she was adorable. He felt his heart skip a beat. Yes, he was gay—that was how he had ended up homeless in New York at the age of fourteen to begin with, before Martha and George had taken him in. But he loved her. Wanted to spend all night holding her. Press small kisses to her neck. He didn’t want her, not in that insistent, demanding way that he yearned for Alex. That hum of lust that he had felt in Alex’s presence that would forever remain unfulfilled. He loved her in the simplest way possible—it simply was.

“I suppose,” she said, leaning against him.

Instantly, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She smelled like flowers after a summer thunderstorm, reminding him of his childhood in South Carolina. Before his mother died. Before his father turned into a tyrant.

“I mean, I don’t know anyone here who thinks they’re the greatest. Except maybe Jefferson.”

She laughed quietly. “I don’t know, Alexander could give him a run for his money.”

He felt a familiar stab in his chest at the mention of Alex. Even if he told Alex how he felt, it would do nothing but cause problems. Alex would not magically fall in love with him just because John felt that way. That was not how life worked. Besides, he didn’t dare break Eliza’s heart. He would never forgive himself if he did.

“Point taken.”

She turned to look up at him, and god, he wanted to kiss her. “That doesn’t explain why you’re out here, you know.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Couldn’t sleep. Don’t really want to sleep.” He couldn’t escape the nightmares even if he tried.

“I understand what you mean. Do you ever feel like your mind is being pushed in a million different directions all at once, and you can never catch any of the threads of thought?”

He nodded. “All the time.”

“I try to numb it out.”

“Let me know how that works out for you.” He couldn’t help but let a little bitterness leak into his tone.

“It doesn’t.” She sighed. “It landed me here, at any rate.” She settled back onto his chest. “Your heart is beating faster.”

Of course it was. He couldn’t tell her it was because of her, because of Alex, of being cursed to love so many and get crushed underneath the heels of life itself. That he didn’t see the point in living, not anymore. That he could never amount to anything. That Alex breaking down the bathroom door and finding him unconscious in a pool of blood was one of his worst failures—not that he had attempted but that he had not succeeded.

He wondered if she had been trying to do the same thing.

“You never told me,” she said, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Told you what?”

“How you ended up here. I mean, we talked about why you cut in the vaguest of terms.” She shifted her position a little in his arms. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t really know what pushed me over the edge, really,” he said. “It had been on my mind for a while. Always on my mind. It tormented me day and night. Like waiting for the subway to school, I would think, what if, what if I just jumped in front of the train.”

His name was a sigh upon her lips. “Oh, John.”

“My family back in South Carolina wouldn’t miss me. My father told me I was as good as dead to him. I think that’s what he told my sister, anyway. That I was dead.”

“That’s horrible! Why would he ever…?”

“Henry Laurens has appearances to keep up. Having a gay son is not part of that appearance.”

He could feel Eliza sag against him, the weight of his words upon her. “But to just disown you, just like that?”

He shrugged his shoulders. It had been three years since he had been kicked to the curb; he had tried his best to keep it in the past.

“I tried to stay alive, for my other family. For Martha and George and Laf and Mulligan and Alex.”

“I can’t imagine Alex made that easy for you,” she said, and her words caught him by surprise.

Was it weird, to be discussing his unrequited love for Alex in front of his sort-of girlfriend, who he also had feelings for? Definitely weird, he decided.

“That wasn’t his fault,” he said, a touch defensively.

Eliza shook her head. “I never said it was. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t struggle, John.”

“Yeah,” he said, relaxing a little.

Eliza broke away from his hold, turning around so that she could face him directly. He didn’t meet her eyes.

“Look at me, John. I need you to look right into my eyes.”

“All right.” The gaze that she fixed on him was very intense, reminiscent of her sister, Angelica.

“I want you to remember something. You matter to me. You matter to me and I want you to stay right here. I ask this completely selfishly and I don’t care that I am being selfish because you, John Laurens, have a life to live outside these walls, and I want to be there to experience every moment with you. So stay. Stay with me, please.”

There was a lump in his throat and tears at the corner of his eyes. Eliza was squeezing both of his hands. “Okay,” he managed to say past the lump.

“Promise me,” she said.

“I promise.” The words felt like a lie, but he wanted, how he wanted, for them to be true.

“Good.” She leaned in and for a brief, stupid moment, he thought she was going to kiss him. Instead she pressed her lips to his cheek. “I can’t lose you. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but I know Alex would be devastated. He would never be the same, without you.”

He didn’t tell her that Alex already had been, finding him like that. She didn’t need to know the ugly corners of the story. At least not yet.

“John! Eliza!” One of the nurses rounded the corner, clipboard in hand. “You know you’re not supposed to be out in the hallways at this hour.”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered, his accent coming out slightly stronger than usual.

“If you need something to sleep, come over to the desk. Otherwise, back to your rooms.”

They parted ways, reluctantly, and as John shuffled back to his room, he wondered if he could truly make good on that promise.


End file.
